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Paul Evensen Bio

Paul Evensen is a co-founder and current Vice President and Chief Science Officer for Community Systems Group, Inc., Lawrence, Kan., where he directs research and development projects exploring the relationship between community development and improved public health.

A nationally known trainer, he has worked as the lead trainer of the CADCA National Coalition Institute’s National Coalition Academy. As such, he helped design, pilot and implement the year-long national training to guide community anti-drug coalitions on the implementation of SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Framework.

Paul also was a lead facilitator for the National Guard Bureau’s Drug Demand Reduction Program for which he designed and facilitated the pilot states meeting process that developed the evaluation plan for all drug demand reduction activities undertaken by the National Guard. He assisted pilot states in creating the national logic model, evaluation measures, evaluation instruments and the parallel redesign of the Counterdrug Mission Information System (CMIS) – a Web-based data collection and reporting system.

As an evaluator for the Mary Black Foundation, Healthy Community Initiative, helped create a countywide response that promotes early childhood development and active living. He designed a “foundation focused” evaluation system that allows the grantor to evaluate a portfolio of grants involving multiple grantees and strategies targeting shared public health outcomes.
Paul also has served as the principle investigator for the Kansas Methamphetamine Prevention Project and Safe Streets of Topeka.

He was a research and Teaching Associate for the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas. And as a Health Specialist and Coalition Director for the American Red Cross chapter in Greenville, S.C., Paul directed HIV-prevention activities and supported other chapters in their prevention programming. He also directed the Upstate HIV Prevention Coalition–a multi-sector coalition covering four counties and 350,000 people.